Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Lament Over Brussels

The curious thing about Europe in general, and Brussels in particular, was how seriously they took airport security in those far off days. Whereas in Bamako, when you were trying to board a plane, they would shove your luggage through a prehistoric scanner and hope for the best, if you were flying to Europe, you would certainly be stopped on the Tarmac so that the flight attendants could personally and meticulously examine everything you had, before you got on board. While America was still under the illusion that anybody could just walk up to the gate and say hello or goodbye, in Belgium, I would be descending the long escalator, waving desperately and crying, miles before any of the real airport began to appear.

So it seems, the centers of all my formative mental furniture have been bashed and assaulted by ISIS and its tentacled arms–Bamako, Grand Bassam, Paris, Brussels. If I was more of a narcissist, I would think they are out to get me.

Except that they don’t really care who they get, they just want death and destruction everywhere. They want violence and chaos. They are Lamech, boasting about killing a child over a trifle, calling for their wives to sing a song for their glory.

But this is Holy Week. And the chaos of human sin is what’s on the menu.